ll known in Germany as
anywhere, while in Sweden they have been good enough to elect me as
one of their favourite authors, thanks to the admirable translations
made of all my books by Miss Emilie Kullmann, of Stockholm, whose energy
did not desert her even when she had so difficult a task to perform as
the rendering of 'Ardath' into Swedish. In Italy and Spain 'Vendetta,'
translated into the languages of those countries, is popular. Madame
Emma Guarducci-Giaconi is the translator of 'Wormwood' into Italian, and
her almost literal and perfect rendering has been running as the
_feuilleton_ in the Florentine journal, _La Nazione_, under the title
'L'Alcoolismo: Un Dramma di Parigi.' The 'Romance of Two Worlds' is to
be had in Russian, so I am told; and it will shortly be published at
Athens, rendered into modern Greek. While engaged in writing this
article, I have received a letter asking for permission to translate
this same 'Romance' into one of the dialects of North-west India, a
request I shall very readily grant. In its Eastern dress the book will,
I understand, be published at Lucknow. I may here state that I gain no
financial advantage from these numerous translations, nor do I seek any.
Sometimes the translators do not even ask my permission to translate,
but content themselves with sending me a copy of the book when
completed, without any word of explanation.

And now to wind up; if I have made a name, if I have made a career, as
it seems I have, I have only one piece of pride connected with it. Not
pride in my work, for no one with a grain of sense or modesty would, in
these days, dare to consider his or her literary efforts of much worth,
as compared with what has already been done by the past great authors.
My pride is simply this: that I have fought my fight alone, and that I
have no thanks to offer to anyone, save those legitimately due to the
publisher who launched my first book, but who, it must be remembered,
would, as a good business man, have unquestionably published nothing
else of mine had I been a failure. I count no 'friend on the Press,' and
I owe no 'distinguished critic' any debt of gratitude. I have come, by
happy chance, straight into close and sympathetic union with my public,
and attained to independence and good fortune while still young and able
to enjoy both. An 'incomprehensibly successful' novelist I was called
last summer by an irritated correspondent of _Life_, who chanced to see
me sha